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We Talked to the School Official Who Brought Gucci Mane to Career Day

As documented in an adorable Facebook photo album, Gucci Mane attended Career Day at southeast Atlanta's Crawford W. Long Middle School this morning. Reached by phone this afternoon, Tony Jones, one of the school's guidance counselors and the coordinator of its Career and Motivational Week, explained how Gucci made it into a language arts classroom and what the questionable role model talked with kids about:

Today was our career exploration day, where we invited guests to come in and speak with the kids and tell them about the different careers. [Gucci Mane] was one of our special guests. It was one of our committee members who got him for us. The kids were excited, more than excited. They were familiar with him, but we didn’t tell them he was coming until today. It was a surprise.

We allowed the scholars to drive the conversation by asking questions. We had a specific list of questions to ask so nothing inappropriate was asked or he wouldn’t be able to spin things in a negative way. All the questions were reviewed before they were asked. It was a set of questions that were driven by the students, like, How did you get into the career? How much time, what kind of schooling does it take? He was very good with the kids. He was here from 10:30 to 2PM. He met with several classes, four sessions. He was with sixth graders and one eighth grade session.

We have lots of aspiring rappers and singers at Crawford Long. We have a fine arts program, orchestra, band, music and chorus. [Career Week is] a whole week of activities. Now that the scholars have had an opportunity to speak with people in different careers, tomorrow they will dress up in the career attire that they would like to achieve later on in life. We’ll take pictures of them in their career attire and we’ll be sending those pictures home to the parents. On Friday, a group of ten kids will be going on internships, to places like Georgia Power and the CNN center.